Procrastination
She raises the glass to her lips and more inhales rather than drinks. Or snorts. You could say she’s addicted because it’s not the type of thing you’d drink if you were in your right mind and the neon on the digital in front isn’t blinking warning signs and certainly not before the reliability of caffeine starts to loose its said reliability and you’re hoping that the smiling man on the front of that tin doesn’t renege on his promise. He doesn’t, and she starts to feel the threat of yet another REM cycle retreat in silence.
Everything is too damn silent. Except the voice of mockery blinking back at her, it hums into her next sip of the glass. She gets up and sachets another caffeine shake and watches it pour in and occasionally out and around the rim of her cup. Sleep in a packet, she smiles, for the creatively inept or the pathologically brain-blocked. She places it next to the smiling man on a tin.
She sees herself on the back of a milk carton. Missing. One brain. Last seen three Wednesdays ago. Wearing motivation and hints of enthusiasm. Please find by Friday, a large bounty applies. May answer to the word: fail.
The screen stares back with blankness, the black dash still blinking in expectation and waiting for that sound of epiphany to shoot it through the deadline. She turns her head.
The cicadas outside and their little freedom songs bring with them the awareness of impending sunlight and its intrusive little fingers. She knows that soon they’ll be snatching at her, pulling her out of the night and its snugness and its promise of time and temporary immunity. This realisation soaks through her until-then intoxicated contentment and her heart pounds a little bit faster and her temples pulse a little bit louder. She grabs for smiling man on a tin and drinks some comfort out of habit. The blinking dash winks and waits.
Dear professor. Under reason, she writes: my brain has recently gone on union strike due to dissatisfaction with certain labour members. Unfortunately this will cause some delay in our progress. As a consequence, I must request special consideration.
Her fingers do the typing and she chuckles a little sarcasm to herself. The blinking dash is happy but she can’t imagine her professor being so. She sighs, signs on the x and folds the blinking dash away. She still has tomorrow, tomorrow she’ll get it done.
Beautiful! Your writing has an amazing power to make me sad
I came across “Dear prescription medicine only” recently, in my old collection of saved cool stuff, and it almost made me cry! Reminded me of this blog, and you. I’d love to get back in contact with Shimeng someday..